SOURCE: "Zwingli: Theologian and Reformer," in Zwingli: An Introduction to His Thought, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1992, pp. 138–48.

Zwingli's theology has many characteristic marks, of which the two most notable are that it is biblical and centred in God. They are not separate, but are intimately related, for the Bible is God's word and not man's and it points to faith in God and not in man.

A Biblical Theologian

The statue of Zwingli by the Wasserkirche in Zurich portrays him with the sword held by the left hand but with the Bible held above it in the right hand. The statue rightly emphasizes the central role of the Bible in Zwingli's reforming ministry. He began his ministry in Zurich on Saturday 1 January 1519, his 35th birthday. He announced that he would begin the next day a continuous exposition of St Matthew, not according to the fathers but according to the scriptures themselves. This action of Zwingli focuses attention on the dominant element in his ministry: the exposition and proclamation of the word.

The preaching of the word meant that the Bible was not God's word in a merely static sense, as something given by God in the past. It was rather for Zwingli the living word of God. Zwingli was to write in A Commentary, 'Those who are faithful therefore grasp at the word of God, as a shipwrecked man grasps at a plank.' (Z III 670.33–4; Works iii. 93.) It was through the preaching of the word that God changed lives and changed society, for in preaching it is God who is the chief actor and not the preacher. Zwingli could therefore say of his preaching in Zurich: 'This is the seed I have sown, Matthew, Luke, Paul, and Peter have watered it, and God has given it splendid increase'. (Z I 285.25–8; Works i. 239.)

To the preaching was added the prophecy in June 1525. It combined scholarly exegesis with biblical exposition. It led to a flow of commentaries on the books of the Bible, and it helped to make both ministers and theological students men of the Bible. In this way Zwingli's biblical emphasis was to shape the life of the church in Zurich and beyond. It is this which was fundamental, though the prophecy is interesting for its surprisingly modern combination of ministerial and lay education and its use of a participatory style of learning. Through exegesis and exposition the Bible spoke to the life of people and their community. The prayer used at the beginning asked not only for an illumination of one's mind but also for a consequent transformation of one's life. Scholarship was not to be divorced from piety, both personal and social.

Two years earlier in the first disputation the fundamental role of the Bible in the Reformation was vividly demonstrated in another way. The Bible was placed before the assembly in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, as a witness to the fact that the criterion of all preaching and teaching is scripture. 'I say that we have here infallible and unprejudiced judges, that is the holy writ, which can neither lie nor deceive. These we have present in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues; these let us take on both sides as fair and just judges.' (Z II 498.2–6; Selected Works 56–7.) Moreover the sixty-seven articles which were the subject of debate at the disputation were described as being 'on the basis of scripture, which is called theopneustos, that is inspired by God'(Z I 458.3–6).

It was the central role and sole authority of scripture which divided Zwingli from his Catholic opponents in Zurich and beyond. With it he repudiated the authority of the church, expressed in the teaching office of the pope or bishops and in the appeal to the councils and fathers of the church. 'They are impious who embrace the word of man as God's. It is, therefore, madness and utter impiety to put the enactments and decrees of certain men or certain councils upon an equality with the word of God.' (Z III 674.23–5; Works iii. 98.) Nevertheless Zwingli could claim in An Exposition of the Faith that his teaching had the support of the fathers: 'Nor do we make a single assertion for which we have not the authority of the first doctors of the church.' (S IV 69.4–5; LCC xxiv. 278.)

Zwingli's view of scripture, above all his giving attention to the whole of it and not just to certain parts, supplied strength and comprehensiveness to his grasp of the Christian faith. It saved him from the one-sidedness of the anabaptists in neglecting the Old Testament in favour of the New and of Luther in stressing justification to the detriment of sanctification.

Yet alongside the centrality of the Bible there was an astonishing, some would say an excessive, openness to the truth whether or not it came in an explicitly Christian form. Standing in a tradition that runs through Justin Martyr and Augustine, Zwingli did not hesitate to welcome the truth he saw in non-Christian writers—in his case essentially pre-Christian ones. Here one sees in him the profound and continuing influence of humanist scholarship, with its delight in the rediscovered literature of Greece and Rome. (At points, especially in his writing on providence, the priority given to the non-biblical material has raised suspicion about the genuinely biblical nature of Zwingli's theology.) Zwingli, following Augustine, held that all truth comes from God, and therefore its immediate source (whether in Paul or in Plato) is unimportant, compared with its ultimate source (in God). The truth moreover was to be tested by the truth disclosed in Christ and scripture. (A parallel to this may be seen in his controversy with Luther, in which Luther accused him of giving to reason a role superior to that of the word. Zwingli answered the charge precisely by stating that his appeal was not to reason itself, independent of faith, but to the reason of the believing man, in other words to reason rooted in faith.)

For Zwingli all goodness, like all truth, comes from God. Therefore he took with deep seriousness the instances of good men who were not Christian. In his vision of heaven in An Exposition of the Faith Socrates was to be found as well as Samuel, Aristides as well as Abraham. But good pagans like Socrates were not good or in heaven because of something in them apart from God or independently of his work of redemption in Christ. It was not their goodness that put them there; rather was their goodness evidence that they had been elected by God in Christ before the foundation of the world. Zwingli's placing of particular people in heaven is open to obvious objection, not least in terms of his own theology which allows that we can never know with certainty whether another person is elect. Zwingli's attitude to people (in his case in the past) who were not Christian and to writings which were not dependent on the biblical revelation foreshadows at points some of the modern discussion of the relation of Christianity to other religious faiths and offers some insights for it.

A Theocentric Theology

The stress on the Bible was in itself a part of and a witness to the theocentric character of Zwingli's theology. This found distinctive expression in a vital element in Zwingli's theology and preaching: the attack on idolatry. This corresponds in a measure to Luther's attack on justification by works. Idolatry means a placing of one's trust in the creature and not the creator. Jeremiah asserted this in the words: 'They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have hewn out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water' (2: 13).

Zwingli's position was expressed in the fifty-first article in 1523: 'He who gives this authority [to remit sins] to the creature takes away the honour that belongs to God and gives it to one who is not God.' (Z 1 464.1–2.) This conviction lay behind his attack on a range of medieval practices and beliefs, such as the intercession of the saints, the use of images, the doing of so-called good works, and a reliance on the sacraments. Zwingli's contrast between faith in God and faith in outward things probably also reflects a negative attitude to outward things which he sees both as leading from God rather than leading to him, and as symbols of what man does rather than of what God does. It is at this point that Zwingli and Luther are in sharpest contrast. Their difference here reflects their different ways of understanding God and creation, and the fact that Zwingli has a Greek as well as a biblical view of the opposition between flesh and spirit.

The theocentric emphasis can be seen also in the sovereignty of God, which shapes the whole of Zwingli's theology. It affects the understanding of God (with a stress on the Spirit and on the divinity rather than the humanity of Christ), of salvation (with a stress on God's providence and election), of church and ministry, and of word and sacrament (with a stress on the inward working of the Spirit rather than the outward means). It is also expressed in his theocratic view of society.

The theocentric emphasis is combined with a strong sense of the opposition of outward and inward, flesh and Spirit, which is part of Zwingli's humanist heritage. (This Greek view exists in Zwingli alongside the biblical opposition of flesh and Spirit, where flesh is the whole person and Spirit is the Holy Spirit.) This combination lies behind Zwingli's view of the sacraments. It separates him from Luther and in a measure from other Reformed theologians, such as Bucer, who combined the two more positively. Of course other influences are also at work here, such as the stress on inwardness in the modern devotion and a reaction against a superstitious regard for externals in much medieval religion.

The opposition of inward and outward was an element in Zwingli's opposition to outward forms in religion. It helps to explain why someone as musical as Zwingli (he played an array of instruments) could banish music and singing from church. Singing could distract from true spiritual worship, just as images inside church could, though not necessarily those outside. In worship as in the whole of life the glory or honour of God was fundamental.

Zwingli's Approach to Reformation

In Zwingli's approach to reformation, teaching and timing were fundamental. He had a strong sense that there was a right moment and a wrong moment for saying or doing something, and in this context he frequently alluded to the danger of casting pearls before swine. His was not the way of the revolutionary—a quick sermon and then out with the hammer and sickle! In his case, let us say, a sermon against idolatry and then out with the hammer to smash the statues and a sickle to slash the pictures. Nor even for him the traditional way of the established church leader, the way of instant legislation, as though changing the church's laws and structures would magically produce reform.

He said of the revolutionaries who wanted to destroy images without more ado, 'Let them first teach their hearers to be upright in the things that pertain to God, and they will immediately see all these objectionable things fall away.' 'Teaching should come first, and the abolition of images follow without disturbance.' (Z III 899.33–5, 906.8–9: Works iii. 330, 337.) To misquote Chaucer, he taught and afterwards he wrought. Preaching and persuasion came first, whether by book, or sermon, or public disputation. The persuasion led to pressure from the people for change, and then—at least in many instances—there followed legislation and action. In Zwingli's wise words:

You can easily persuade an old man to leave his chair if you first put into his hand a staff upon which he can lean, when otherwise he will never listen to you but rather believe that you are trying to entrap him into falling upon the pavement and breaking his head. So the human mind must above all be led to an infallible knowledge of God, and when it has duly attained that, it will easily let go false hopes in created things. (Z III 891.3–8; Works iii. 321.)

He advocated that one should first 'restore to their creator the hearts that are given over to this world' before trying to abolish the mass and cast out images (Z V 393.19–22; Works ii. 31). He was concerned also about the weak and argued that 'to press on regardless of the weak is the mark not of a strong but of a restless spirit which cannot wait until the poor sheep can catch up behind' (Z IV 255.9–13; LCC xxiv. 158).

With such an approach to reform (at least in outward things), it is not surprising that when changes came they lasted so long. The most notable example is that of organs. They were abolished in 1524 and destroyed in 1527. Apparently Zurich did not have an organ again until over three centuries later in 1848, and even then because of opposition it was not consecrated for five years. Zwingli's church, the Great Minster, did not have one till 1874—350 years after the last one had been played there.

His sense of the right time may express a naturally cautious approach. At several points he held back when others took an initiative. He was present when others broke the Lenten fast in 1522, but he did not break it himself, although he defended those who did. He attacked images before the second disputation in October 1523, but he did not break them as others did, although he afterwards visited in prison those who had done so. He supported marriage for ministers, but although he married early in 1523 he did not make his marriage public until 2 April 1524. He advocated the use of German rather than Latin in worship, but it was Jud who first introduced it, not Zwingli.

A Social Reformer

The Reformation was clearly and fundamentally concerned with people's personal faith in God, but it was also social. In some places it has been fashionable to speak of the Reformation of the sixteenth century as concerned with God and the reformation of the twentieth century as concerned with man. Luther, it is said, wrestled with the question, 'How can I find a gracious God?', whereas we wrestle with the question, 'How can I find a gracious neighbour?' There is a truth in this half-truth, or perhaps a half-truth in this truth. The Reformation of Luther and Zwingli, Bucer and Calvin, was rooted in the discovery of a gracious God. But as there is no fire without heat, so there is no faith without love, no finding a gracious God without becoming a gracious neighbour. For Zwingli as for Luther faith is active in love, but for Zwingli in addition one of the purposes of the law is to show us God's will so that we may live in accordance with it.

Thus the seemingly modern idea that churches or church property should be sold or adapted for the poor is not a new idea. Zwingli, like Bucer, recalled that Ambrose sold chalices to ransom prisoners of war. Furthermore it was natural for Zwingli to tell people to spend their money not on images but on the poor, and to see that monasteries were turned into schools or hospitals or places for the poor. His profoundly biblical (though not literalist) theology enabled him to come afresh to social questions (such as marriage and tyrannicide) and offer new approaches.

A Political Reformer

The Reformation, however, was political as well as social. Zwingli's social concern was not simply ambulance work, helping the poor when they were down to stand up, although he was certainly not concerned with a fundamental change in the structure of society as we understand that today. His aim was to build a Christian society, a society ordering its life according to God's word, in which preacher and prince (or in his case the council) were both servants of God.

The political emphasis can be seen in his patriotism. He was an intense patriot years before he was a reformer, and engaged with political questions from the beginning of his ministry. In particular he opposed the mercenary system—attacking those who made a profit from hiring out their fellow countrymen to foreign powers as well as deploring the lowering of moral standards and the self-indulgence that followed from foreign contact and cheap money. These attacks led to his departure from his first parish in Glarus, but helped his later move to Zurich.

In Zurich he dealt directly with social and political issues in his preaching, and did not hesitate to name names in his sermons. He portrayed the minister in terms of the prophet, and encouraged others to engage in a ministry that was social and political. He did this notably in his sermon on the shepherd or pastor, preached to some 350 ministers at the second disputation in October 1523. He used the example of Elijah and Naboth's vineyard to show that the prophet is obliged to challenge those in authority not just when the whole people suffers but also when only one person suffers injustice. In the light of John the Baptist's challenge to Herod he declared:

From this we learn, that the shepherd must handle and oppose everything which no one else dares to, with no exception, and he must stand before princes, people, and priests, and not allow himself to be frightened by greatness, strength, numbers, nor any means of terror, and at God's command not cease till they are converted … (Z III 34.3–5, 35.30–36.2.)

A Practical Reformer

There was also a practical element in Zwingli's approach to reformation. Zwingli had no doubt that God's will would prevail, but he stood clearly in the tradition that was to find expression in the famous words ascribed to Cromwell: 'Put your trust in God and keep your powder dry!' One of his most astonishing writings is an actual plan for war, which is well regarded by some military experts. It included detailed instructions about such matters as the disposition of the troops, the time of day or night for attack, and the sort of blasts to be blown on the trumpet. Its concern was not essentially a military one. Its point for Zwingli is clear in its opening words. 'In the name of God! Amen. The author has produced this plan to the honour of God and in the service of the gospel of Christ, so that violence and oppression do not gain control and suppress the fear of God and innocence of life.' (Z III 551.1—5.)

His concern in this was with the preaching of the gospel. That lay behind his Plan for a Campaign, as it did with the later battle against the five cantons. In June 1529, when Berne was hesitant about war with them. Zwingli wrote about the necessity to secure the preaching of the gospel. 'This is the end I have in view—the enervation of the oligarchy. Unless this takes place neither the truth of the gospel nor its ministers will be safe among us.' (Z X 147.5–7.)

This practical concern lay behind Zwingli's attempts to forge alliances with other states and cities. Yet in 1531 he would not compromise his view of the eucharist (even so far as to subscribe the Tetrapolitan Confession of Bucer) in order to join the Schmalkald League. Yet the league was formed to defend the preaching of the gospel and its members included allies such as Strasbourg and Constance and Philip of Hesse. 'The business of the truth is not to be deserted, even to the sacrifice of our lives. For we do not live to this age, nor to the princes, but to the Lord.' (Z XI 340.2–4.)

Besides the practical and often political approach which distinguished him from Luther, there was a practical approach which in some cases was common to them, in particular the recognition that new forms of worship were needed to give expression to the rediscovery and reformulation of the Christian faith. Recent study has shown something of Zwingli's originality here. A reformation lives only as it finds outward forms which embody what it expresses. It is part of the success of Zwingli that he and others gave such forms to the Reformation in Zurich, both in worship and in public life.

A Pastoral Reformer

There was also a pastoral and corporate dimension to the Reformation. Unlike Erasmus whom he much admired, Zwingli had a congregation with all the demands that that made on him. His theology was not formed in a quiet study, but under constant pressure and in response to religious and political problems at home and abroad. In a letter to Haller in 1523 he referred to having been called away ten times in writing it. He mentioned the demands made on him on all sides; yet he told Haller not to spare him if he could be of use, as soon it would be quieter. (Z VIII 140.30–5.) To Valian in the following year he wrote of the haste in which everything was done as he tried to help people and keep deadlines with the printer, whose eye was on the date of the book fair, adding that he did not have in the house a single copy of a letter. (He was in fact without a secretary.) (Z VIII 166.11–167.6.) A year later he wrote to Vadian of being so busy and suffering so much from headaches that if he did not see his pen go forward, he would hardly know what was happening (Z VIII 314.13–15).

It was under such pressure that Zwingli, the theologian and reformer, worked. But he did not work alone. He had his library; he had the years of careful study both of the Greek New Testament and of the fathers which had preceded his coming to Zurich; he had colleagues such as Jud; and he had a circle of learned friends such as Bucer and Oecolampadius. Ministry was much less isolated from colleagues, and theology less isolated from the life of church and society than it often is today—and what was true for Zwingli in Zurich was equally true for Bucer in Strasbourg and Luther in Wittenberg.

These elements in Zwingli's work as theologian and reformer are not all that could be said about him, though they are characteristic and important. His was a theology that was biblical, yet open to truth wherever it is found. It was centred in God, but in the God who has revealed himself in Christ and who is active through the Spirit. His was a reformation that was educational and practical in method, and personal, social, and political in scope. Both the reformation and the theology sprang from one who was not a solitary, but a partner with others in ministry. His aim in it all can be seen in the last words of A Commentary: 'All I have said, I have said to the glory of God, and for the benefit of the commonwealth of Christ and the good of the conscience.' His was a theology and ministry which embraced society as well as the individual, but its source and goal were the glory of God.